Your Customers Are Martians

Okay, your customers aren’t really Martians (unless, maybe, if you work for a space agency). But they might as well be. I’ve started to use the metaphor that “companies are from Venus and customers are from Mars:”

The gender gap is nothing compared with the company-customer gap. These entities have completely different motivations and conceptual frameworks. Without a disciplined approach to customer experience, people have a stong bias towards developing experiences from the left to the right, pushing Venus perspectives on Martian customers. The result: a plethora of gaps between what customers expect and what companies deliver.

The bottom line: Improve customer experience by developing the right (to left) discipline.

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I am a customer experience transformist, helping large organizations improve business results by changing how they deal with customers. As part of this focus, I examine strategy, culture, interaction design, customer service, branding and leadership practices. I am also a fanatical student of business, so this blog provides an outlet for sharing insights from my ongoing educational journey.
Simply put, I am passionate about spotting emerging best practices and helping companies master them. And, as many people know, I love to speak about these topics in almost any forum.
My “title” is Managing Partner of the Temkin Group, a customer experience research and consulting firm that helps organizations become more customer-centric. Our goal is simple: accelerate the path to delighting customers.
I am also the co-founder and Emeritus Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to the success of CX professionals.